Mastering Quality or Quality Mastering? (Workshop @ VDT SYMPOSIUM Oct 30th - Nov 1st 2009) DARCY PROPER & RALPH KESSLER Mastering is the last stage in an audio production where the final “polish” is put on the sound and the material is put into a format that is technically acceptable for manufacture. While in years past, the mastering engineer has asked to aim for “what makes a track sound its best,” the current trend is for “what makes a track sound the loudest.” Ralph Kessler (Echo-Award) has invited multiple Grammy-Award-winning mastering engineer, Darcy Proper, to join him in an expert dialogue in which they will attempt to dispel some of the myths that justify this “loudness quest,” with some examples and an open discussion about how we’ve reached this current state of affairs in the mastering world. They will also talk about responsability and customer psychology in order to preserve at least an acceptable range of “quality” parameters for the final medium.